Greetings Earthlings, we have now taken over your radio... err Forum. ;-)

Stupid Joke aside:

I`m in the planning stage for a new RT group and my players suggested to start with a small fleet of 1-3 small ships instead of a fully equipped frigate or something bigger.

We thought about maybe one or two raiders with just a skeleton set of components and maybe a transport-ship.

Any ideas, objections or thoughts on that?

CU

Gregor, hailing by vox-transmission from Germany.

Better to make one fully-equipped "flag" ship and simply have the other two vessels be background/NPC crewed. Less of a headache organization-wise.

Fortinbras said:

Pretty much this. Have them have one ship they use, and then have a couple of ships running background endeavours as per Into the Storm.

I concur with the previous posters, let NPC's crew the other ships and make them do background endeavors or keep the existing trade interests alive. I will have my own players buy a transport soon for just that purpose. For your Campaign, I would say give them 2 transports (the vagabond class would do fine) and 1 raider. If they expect trouble with an endeaver, they can pool resources and use the fleet to fight bigger opponents.

I'd concur. After about 8 months worth of sessions my players have two transports, an escort carrier, a destroyer, a frigate and a light cruiser in their Dynasty (most through strategic marriages and judicious use of profit factor), but they use the light cruiser as their flagship, with the frigate doing remote recon and the destroyer either escorting them or the Dynasty's transports. Saves a big headache in administration.

Thanks for the input. The idea of one ship controlled by the players and the rest of the fleet by NPCs was already in the back of my mind.